Books like Fragile Dwelling — picked by fans

It’s hard to know quite where to begin with this book–there is so much to love.

This book tells the story of the Great Migration of African American people out of the South across the United States to Chicago, New York, California, and beyond; it transforms and fills in a crucial part of American history that every American should know to understand our present day. But for me, what I love most starts with the way Isabel Wilkerson cares for people’s stories. 

Wilkerson tells this decades-long, sweeping, under-told story through individual stories that are so detailed and compelling, so thoroughly contextualized with historical research, that I was completely enmeshed in these people’s lives, their struggles, their loves, and their feelings. I cared. In the years since I read it, stories from the book often come to my mind, teaching and guiding me like the words of a beloved relative. 

In luminous prose, Raja Shehadeh describes six walks into the Palestinian countryside between 1978 and 2006.

He writes of the ancient practice of rural peoples of naming each wadi, spring, hillock, escarpment, etc., in their immediate environment.

Shehadeh sometimes risks his life simply to walk on the land near Ramallah in the proximity of ever-expanding Israeli settlements. I have twice been to the West Bank, most recently in January of 2025. No area is safe, but the love Palestinians have for the land has in no way lessened.

Shehadeh’s book is a timeless and compassionate love letter to the earth. To know Palestine, first you must know the land.

This book manages to be both personal and political, valuing people’s stories and experiences while explaining the way redlining and urban renewal impact individuals over generations.

Mindy Fullilove doesn’t just talk about what happened when the brutality and racism of urban renewal uprooted diverse communities; she tells how it felt and what we can do now. Fullilove has been described as “the town shrink,” and her insistence on and commitment to cities as spaces where people’s well-being should be cared for is inspiring. 

In this book, she tells real stories of neighbors in Pittsburgh, PA, Newark, NJ, and Roanoke, VA–not places on which many books focus. As I read, her narrative expanded my mind about the ways we are all connected through our humanity and these often painful histories of place and what that connection implies for all of our futures. 

The people in this book shaped the spaces and sidewalks of a city I know well. Prithi Kanakamedala’s telling of four Black families’ stories and the ways they shaped Brooklyn gave depth to my own way of thinking, writing, and caring about the borough. 

I love this book because it makes people who are often absent from written histories feel vital and real–it introduces us to Black people who have agency in shaping their own lives and places, and specifically, to brilliant Black women who are almost invisible in the archive. 

I could imagine talking with these people, seeing the signs they saw, hearing the smells they smelled, and walking their streets; the book allowed me to see how Black people shaped their place–and shaped the place Brooklyn would become–and how this making of the place was really making the arguments for freedom. What else could you want?

I confess I love the photographs, and there are lots of them. Marcia Bricker Halperin, a New York Jewish photographer, took them back in the 1970s, but only after she rediscovered them did she realize what she had done.

I treasure spending time looking at the faces of these men and women in the cafeteria, eavesdropping on their conversations, admiring the incredible theatrical milieu, and entering their world of good food and fast friendships. 

“I saw a little boy on the street today, and he cried so eloquently that I will never forget him.” Maeve Brennan wrote for the New Yorker’s Talk of the Town section as ‘The Long-Winded Lady’ from 1954 to 1968. She roamed the city’s streets, bars, and restaurants, eyes wide open, weaving stories of vivid emotional detail from the most seemingly mundane moments. None of these are too long – in the waiting room concentration can be fleeting – but each sketch engages. Her story of the crying boy ends this way: “He might have been the last bird in the world, except that if he had been the last bird there would have been no one to hear him.”

Understanding New York Jews is key to understanding American Jews. There is no city like New York City and there are no Jews like New York Jews. In the middle of the 20th century, they made up around 30% of the total city population. This three-volume award-winning set uncovers aspects of the city’s history that even aficionados don’t know. Each volume can be purchased separately but together they paint an absorbing panorama across four centuries. I like to teach the volumes. They are fresh each time I read them, with lively prose and compelling vignettes. Reading them is like walking the streets of Gotham with a great guide.

Having worked for a jewelry designer in the Washington, DC area, The Gem Thief caught my eye. The story took me back to my days in the shop (good memories!), and the author has obviously done her research, because her accuracy is impeccable. I liked all of the characters, but I bonded with one of the secondary characters so much that I felt we could be friends in “real life.” I’ve been to New York City often, so I also enjoyed revisiting the city. The book was both comfortable because of all the associations to “past lives,” and exciting as I turned pages wondering what would happen next.

I love this book because it’s the best fictional example I’ve ever seen of a character’s disability being eclipsed by his talent. Lincoln Rhyme is paralyzed, but his talent as a criminologist is far more important—and Deaver showcases Rhyme’s genius and passion as often as he details the difficulties of disability.

I find the book’s mystery compelling and the characters well-written, and I couldn’t get enough of the relationship between Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs. I’ve never seen a better portrayal of a partnership based solidly on mutual respect and admiration. I’m so grateful for how this story demonstrates that disability doesn’t need to stop you from making a real impact through the gifts and talents you’ve been given.

This is a novel about Italian immigrants struggling to survive in New York City’s Little Italy during the early years of the twentieth century amid the growth of the Black Hand, the precursor to the American mafia. The book is unique in that most of the characters are the author’s actual ancestors and people with whom they had come into contact during that era. Similarly, the grisly central events described in the story all occurred.

It is beautifully written and filled with fascinating historical details. The characters and the descriptions of places and events come alive on the page. Fabiano includes an extensive Glossary of Italian Terms used in the book, as well as a multi-generational family tree. Elizabeth Street makes for very good reading!